Then suddenly he appeared amongst them, bent and crippled with wounds and rheumatism, and unrecognisable by anyone but Mary. Together they set up house, and Owen again got out the board and the big scissors and the chalk and the wax which his sister had carefully kept, and announced to the town of Shepton Mallet that he was going to become a tailor once more. However, the cottage which the brother and sister had taken proved inconvenient in many ways, and after a time they moved to another, near the high road, with the main street lying at the end of the garden. Here he used to sit in the evening when his work was done, and talk with some of his old friends who would lean over the gate and tell him all the news. As time went on, Owen's rheumatism grew worse and worse, till at length he was too crippled to move without help, and by and bye he became unable to stir hand or foot. Mary had grown very old also, for her eightieth birthday had long been past, and though no cottage in Shepton Mallet was cleaner than hers, she was very feeble, and Owen looked forward with terror to the day when she would certainly break down. But Mary was not the woman to give in while there was any strength left in her, and when she found that she could not get her brother outside the door by herself, she engaged a girl called Susannah Snook, living about fifty yards away, to come and assist her. Between them they carried him along the passage to a chair placed, if the weather was fine, outside the house door, and there they left him, warmly wrapped up, while his bed was made and his room put tidy. It was in the afternoon of a June day in 1768 that Owen Parfitt, dressed in the night things which he always wore, with an old greatcoat over his shoulders, took up his usual position in the little garden. No one seems actually to have seen him or spoken with him, but then it was haymaking season, and the fields round the Parfitts' cottage were filled with people, while it is only reasonable to suppose that the turnpike road opposite had many carts and horsemen passing up and down. Be this as it may, there was the old man taking his airing, 'plain for all folks to see,' when Susannah, having made him comfortable, turned and went back to Mary. After the bed had been made and the room put to rights, the girl went home, but she must either have quitted the cottage by a _back_ door, or else the helpless old man must still have been sitting where she left him. In any case, in about half an hour the news reached her that Owen had disappeared, and his sister was almost distracted. Susannah flew back to the cottage as fast as her feet would take her, and found Mary weeping bitterly. The girl at once tried to find out what had happened, but the old woman was so upset that this was not very easy. Bit by bit, however, Susannah discovered that after she had returned home, Mary had gone upstairs for a short time, and on coming down again was struck by the silence.